by Sarah Hegger
A man crowded behind her and then stepped around her with a noise of impatience. She was blocking the flow of people on the sidewalk, so she ducked into the building after Cole.
Inside was quieter, and she had to blink against the sudden dark.
“The street gets plenty of traffic.” Cole opened some shutters and light spilled across the dusty floor. A couple of empty glass counter cases stood at one end of the space. Empty shelves rose behind it. The sort of shelves for goods, or bolts and bolts of lovely fabric for women to choose from.
She could see what Cole did.
The glass cases could be used for accessories and ribbons. In the center, she could position a couple of chaises for women waiting for a fitting. She followed Cole through a door into the back.
It was even larger with plenty of room for seamstresses and even an office. She could partition off one section for women to be fitted. Hell, she had enough space for more than one fitting room.
Reality crashed into her dreams. “Cole, I don’t know how much the rental is, but I’m pretty sure it adds up to more than I can afford.”
“Here’s my proposal.” Cole grabbed her hand and tugged her closer to him. “I believe in you, Ellie, and I’d like to stake you to start your business. I provide you enough funds to get started and this space. I’ll be in New York, so a silent partner. What do you say, Ellie?”
“I say this feels like charity.” Her dreams drifted so close, and she wanted them so bad.
“It’s not charity if I have a stake in the business.” He wrapped his arms around her. “And I’m a demanding business partner.”
The look in his eyes lit her like a candle, and she softened against him. They were lovers now. That meant she could lean into him, rise on her toes and kiss him as if he belonged to her.
Cole groaned into her mouth. “Ellie. Is this a yes, Cole?”
“This is a yes, Cole.” She pressed her breasts into his chest. “This is also a more please, Cole. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cole insisted on taking her to lunch afterward. It was the first time Ellie had been in a restaurant so grand and she prayed she wouldn’t do anything stupid like pick her teeth with her knife. Not that she’d ever picked her teeth with her knife, but still it could—
“Ellie.” Cole laid a hand over hers. “Breathe.”
She stifled a nervous giggle. A woman seated by the picture window turned and stared from beneath her enormous, plumed hat.
Ellie took in the gleaming wooden floor, the crisp white tablecloths, the crystal and the polished silver and said, “It’s very grand here, isn’t it?”
Cole glanced around them. “I suppose. Would you like to go somewhere else?”
“No, this is…” Not her, and everybody in there could see how out of place she was. “Cole, I don’t belong here.”
He stared at her across the tablecloth that Ellie knew they starched. “Sugar, you can be whoever the hell you want to be, and you can go wherever you want.” He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. “You, Sugar Ellie, are a powerful force of nature.”
Well, when he put it that way. Her cheeks flushed and she sipped from her crystal water goblet. She’d never seen crystal in her life, but she’d bet her best bustle this was it.
A waiter dressed in black tails appeared at their table. “Good afternoon, Mr. Mansfield. We are pleased to have you back.”
“Thanks, Gerald. We’d like a bottle—”
“Sugar?” a man called. “Sugar Ellie, is that you, honey?”
The beautiful room with the elegantly dressed men and women faded away, replaced by the sawdust floor of the Four Kings and the smell of stale beer, dusty range, tobacco and sweat.
“Well, I never.” A tall man with a thin mustache and dark, slicked back hair appeared at their table. “I thought it was you, but I couldn’t be certain.” He looked at Cole with a gleam in his eye. “I didn’t know you—”
“You still don’t know.” Cole stood as tall but broader and oozing quiet menace. “Now, say your hello and move on.”
“I—” The man swallowed and nodded. “Sorry, Whisky. I didn’t realize…mean to say.” He cleared his throat and smoothed a hand over his jacket. “Nice to see you, Sugar. You look great.”
He hurried away and out of the restaurant.
Ellie didn’t even know his name. He could be one of thousands of men who had passed through the Four Kings in her time there, another gambler with a taste for adventure and a hankering after some easy money.
“You okay?” Cole took his seat, anger still stamped on the lines of his face.
Was she? Not a chance.
The woman with the huge hat was looking at her again, and Ellie felt she could see past her widow’s dress and straight into the madam she had been. She felt exposed, naked, like she was sitting there in her ankle boots, stockings and satin corset. Suddenly, she was Sugar Ellie. The woman she’d been running from had caught up with her.
Cole stood and held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
Forcing herself to keep walking, Ellie restrained the need to run as far and fast as she could. Would that be far enough to escape who she had been all these years?
She didn’t believe so.
Outside the restaurant, Cole helped her into his carriage and got in beside her. He took her hand, and she could feel his gaze on her. “Ellie?”
“She’s always going to be there.” She had never spoken her fear to anyone. To be fair, she’d had nobody who would listen before today. “Sugar Ellie is going to outlive me.”
“Sugar Ellie isn’t so bad.” Cole wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I used to make a trip out to Rattler’s Gulch, through the dust, dirt and whatever the hell else it kicked up, to see Sugar Ellie.”
He didn’t really get it. “Sugar Ellie is a whore.”
“Sugar Ellie is a woman who did what she needed to survive, and she never hurt anyone doing it.” He kissed her temple. “Sugar Ellie is sweet and sassy and beautiful. She’s got a heart even bigger than her gumption, and she’s got plenty of that.”
He was comforting her, trying to make her feel better, and it was working a little too. It was also making her aware of something that had never crystalized in her thinking before. Even before he’d known she wasn’t who she portrayed herself to be, Cole hadn’t judged. He had accepted Sugar Ellie for who she was and the choices she’d made.
“You don’t really get it.” She stared out the carriage window at the bustling city she had hoped to make a new start in. “Because you don’t see me and see a whore, you see the woman.”
“When you look at me, do you see a man who’s killed, cheated and lied to survive?”
“No.” She saw Cole, a man who was coming to mean too much to her.
“Right.” He shrugged. “But I’ve done all of those things and more besides.” He rested his cheek against her head. “This is a tough world we’re part of, Sugar, and sometimes we all have to do what it takes to stay breathing.”
He was right, but it still didn’t alleviate the pressure on her chest. Theo used to call her Sugar when she was younger, and when she stepped into her role at the Four Kings, Sugar had stuck with Ellie added to it. Sugar Ellie had chosen her, and she wasn’t going to disappear without a fight.
The carriage stopped, and Cole helped her out.
Looking so out of place it would have been laughable if she hadn’t been so shocked, Pete and Isaac sat on the top steps of Cole’s house.
Roberts stood in the doorway, a look of relief as he spotted Cole. “I am sorry, Mr. Mansfield. These persons insist on speaking with you and will not be deterred.”
“That’s all right, Roberts. Take them to my study and bring some refreshments.”
Roberts took it in his stride and nodded. “Very good. Gentlemen? If you would be so good as to follow me.”
“Huh?” Isaac blinked at Pete.
Pete boxed his ears. “Git after him.” He looked over at Cole and gr
imaced. “We need to talk. I can’t get a lick of work outta him since you left with that girl.”
Dumbstruck, Ellie followed Cole into the house. At the door, she handed her hat and coat to a hovering Molly.
Jerking her head at Pete’s disappearing back, Molly whispered, “Who’s that?”
“I suspect he will be Bridget’s father-in-law.”
Molly gaped and then sniffed. “Well, I don’t like the look of him. Looks mean.”
Pete had his moments, and as the woman he’d abducted, she certainly didn’t have too much good to say for him, but she’d come to no harm at his cabin and he genuinely cared for his son. “He’s a bit odd.”
“I’ll say.” Molly snickered.
“Miss O’Rourke?” Roberts glided down the corridor. “If you have successfully retrieved Mrs. Pierce’s outerwear, I suggest you take it to her chamber.” He glared down at Molly, hands behind his back. “And then Bertha requires some help in the laundry.”
Molly looked at her and winked. “We’re not supposed to gossip about the guests.”
“Miss O’Rourke!”
“All right, Uncle Dan, but I still think it’s strange someone like that showing up to a house like this.”
Roberts kept his face impassive and motioned Ellie forward. “Mr. Mansfield requests you join them in the study.”
Like she would miss what Pete had to say. Ellie hurried to join them.
Cole looked relieved to see her.
Beside the window, Isaac stood mangling his hat between his hands.
Pete accepted a glass from Cole and sniffed it. Deciding it met his standards, he downed the glass.
Raising an eyebrow, Cole refilled Pete’s glass and sipped his own drink. “You’re here about Bridget.”
“Is she here?” Up came Isaac’s head, hope beaming from his eyes.
Ellie took pity on him. “I think she’s in the kitchen helping Cook.”
“May I see her?” Isaac edged for the door. “Just for a moment.”
Roberts appeared in the doorway and on a nod from Cole took Isaac with him.
“Now, I know you aren’t partial to my method of getting my boy a wife.” Pete held out his empty glass for a refill.
A refill of a whisky, Ellie suspected, cost more money than Pete saw in a year.
“You kidnapped me,” Ellie said. However Pete tried to dress it up, he’d knocked her out and toted her on the back of a mule.
Pete gaped at her. “Well, if I’d asked you, you would’a said no.”
“That’s true.” Laughter glittered in Cole’s eyes as he turned to look at her. “You would have said no.”
Ellie gave up on the two of them. “Why are you here?”
“I reckon we should have us a wedding.” Pete went in for glass four.
Ignoring Pete’s outstretched glass, Cole looked at her. “I hadn’t sent anyone to Pete yet, and you know how Bridget’s been.”
“How’s she been?” Pete stomped over to the decanter and helped himself. “Sighing and pining like that idiot of mine?”
“Something like that.” Ellie was gladder than she could say that Pete and Isaac had made the trip before receiving any message. They really did care about Bridget, cared enough to make the long trip and put themselves at her and Cole’s mercy.
Pete sniffed and hitched his pants. “I reckon Isaac and I could add an extra room on the cabin. Young people need their privacy and all. Then maybe when the little ’uns come, we can expand a bit more. We got plenty of land out there.”
“How do I know she’ll be safe, and you won’t hurt her?” Ellie wasn’t about to miss her chance to make Pete squirm a bit.
Pete took a grubby cloth from his back pocket and wiped his mouth and beard. “Because I didn’t hurt you none, and I had plenty of chance before your fella showed up.”
“You kidnapped me.” Ellie felt the point needed belaboring.
Pete shook his head. “You keep harping on that.”
“Because you can’t go around kidnapping women.”
Looking unconvinced, Pete stared into his empty glass. “Then, I guess I’ll apologize. Will that make you happy?”
“Fine.” At some point, she had to give up and let the greased pig run free. She stared at Pete.
Pete stared back. “What?”
“Go ahead and apologize.” He was lucky she wasn’t insisting on some groveling with it.
“I just did.”
“No, you offered to apologize, and I said fine. You still have to do the apologizing.”
Heaving his pants up, Pete rolled his eyes. “I am sorry for kidnapping you. I recognize that I was wrong, and I pledge never to do such a thing again. I also give you my word, on my late wife’s soul, that no harm will come to Bridget.” He nodded. “Kin’s kin, and I look after mine.”
“Ellie?” Cole looked to her.
She already knew what her answer was, but it wasn’t her proposal to accept or reject. “The only person who gets to decide if there’s going to be a wedding here today is Bridget.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bridget and Isaac—Isaac Fisher, it turned out—were married the next day in Cole’s palatial living room. Cole had unearthed a willing preacher, and Roberts and Molly stood witness with Cole and Ellie.
The night before, Ellie and Molly had worked all night on a dress, and Bridget got married looking heartbreakingly beautiful in a green and silver gown and wearing fresh flowers in her hair.
Cole offered them and Pete a room for the night, but they all declined. They wanted to get back to the cabin as soon as they could.
Pete did accept a wagon and four new mules to pull it, however, along with a crate of whisky and some bits and pieces to make Bridget’s life more comfortable.
Standing on the porch beside Cole later that morning, Ellie waved Bridget goodbye.
Turned around in her seat, Bridget kept waving until the wagon lumbered around the corner and they were out of sight.
Ellie really hoped Bridget would be all right.
“That’s a big sigh.” Cole wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Worried about her?”
“A bit.” Ellie allowed herself to be led back into the house. “There won’t be anyone to help her if she needs it.”
Cole opened the library door and shut it behind them. “If it worries you, I can always send someone out to check on them.”
“Pete would shoot them.”
“Not if they bring free stuff with them.” Cole picked up a bottle of champagne leftover from the wedding toast and handed her a glass.
Ellie took a sip. She was developing a fondness for champagne. Once Cole was gone though, she’d be back to beer. “I think she’ll be fine. Happy even. Pete never hurt me, and after you were stabbed, he could have finished the job, but he didn’t.”
Cole stopped with his glass halfway to his mouth and looked at her. “I, for one, am very glad he didn’t finish the job.”
Giggling, Ellie set down her glass, closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Me too.”
“I’ve been thinking.” Cole looped his arms around her. “About you.”
“Hmm?” She liked the sound of that. She also liked the sharp line of his jaw and she craned her neck and kissed it. His skin was warm against her lips, and he smelled like sandalwood and whisky. “What sort of thoughts?”
“Not those.” His voice went deeper, and he drew her closer to him. “Or should I say, not only those thoughts.”
Ellie tasted the strong column of his neck, still smooth from his morning shave. “I missed you last night.”
“You were busy.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth. “Now stop that so I can speak to you.”
“Speak?” Ellie slid her hands inside his jacket. “I may be new to this love affair thing, but even I know it doesn’t involve a lot of speaking.”
“Complaining already?” He pressed her hips to his. “We’ll get to the loving later, but listen up, this is important.”<
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“All right.” She stepped away from him and picked up her champagne glass. Robbed of her first choice of pleasure, she took an enormous swig of her second.
Cole refilled her glass and poured himself a whisky. “You can’t stay in Denver.”
“Not without people knowing who I am.” Her mood crashed into despondent. “And if that man spotted us yesterday, it won’t be long before my brothers find us.”
Nodding, Cole sipped his whisky. “That’s what occurred to me last night. You can’t stay here, and you can’t go back.” His gaze grew more intense. “But you can come with me to New York.”
Ellie laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was an absurd idea, and Cole was clearly joking. Only he kept looking at her as if he were dead serious. Her mirth disappeared. “Cole. I can’t come to New York with you.”
“Why not?” He had a set line to his jaw that meant he was going to be difficult.
Ellie couldn’t believe she had to spell it out for him. “After all this time, how do you think Victoria is going to feel about you showing up with another woman?”
“I’ll explain that you’re the widow of a good friend and I am setting you up in business as per his instructions.” Cole took a seat in a large leather chair. “If it even comes to that. New York is a huge place, and once I set you up, you and Victoria may never cross paths.”
He made sense, but it was still a crazy idea. Denver was the biggest city she’d ever been in, and it intimidated her enough. However, Cole was right about New York being big enough for her to get lost. Her brothers would never find her in a city that size. Jake and the twins she was glad of, but not Theo. “What about Theo? If I go to New York, he’ll never find me.”
“I’ve thought of that too.” He stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankle. “Whether you come to New York or not, I’m sending someone to find Theo.”
“I’m not sure where to even look.” Ellie could go to San Francisco. That or stay there waiting for Jake to catch up with her, and that really was no choice. “I think I should go to San Francisco.”